With the launch of the on-demand video streaming service Netflix in the UK and the offer of one month's free trial, I decided to give the service a quick test.

More than the selection of programmes and films available on the service though, I was curious to see if instant streaming would work on my Linux computers. In short, it does not.

I tested the service in both Firefox and Chromium, with default and altered user-agents without success. I was mildly optimistic that whilst it wouldn't work straight away, that perhaps by faking the user agent it could be forced to work but unfortunately it was not that simple.

My optimism came about because Netflix should work on a Chromebook (running Google's Linux-based cloud OS Chrome OS). Unfortunately though, it seems from the error page that Google's system has some software specifically to allow it to use the software. Unless this software is available outside of Chrome OS then it seems that general Linux usage is futile.

The only alternative would be to resort solely to streaming using an XBox or Android phone but for me, the latter has a screen size much too small and the former is a hassle to use thanks to the TV only having one HDMI socket which is generally occupied by my Sky box.

So less than 30 minutes after starting my trial, I have canceled my membership. It's no great loss - I watch more than enough TV via Sky - but I think it's a shame that a service which obviously technically can run on a Linux system (proven as it's on Chrome OS) is not widely available for any Linux system.